Smarter Online Business - Tech, Tools & Truths for Websites that Sell

How to Use Facebook to Grow Your Business - Without Ads or Burnout

• Carrie Saunders • Episode 142

Share episode

Send Carrie a Text Message!

What if you could grow your audience and email list every single day... 
…without spending a dime on ads or being chained to social media 24/7? 

Today’s guest, Tracy Beavers, is here to show us how. 

Tracy is a business growth coach, speaker, and creator of the Business Visibility Made Easy course. With over 20 years of experience and hundreds of entrepreneurs helped, she’s mastered how to grow your visibility through organic marketing—especially using Facebook the smart way. 

In this episode, Tracy breaks down: 

  • How to use your personal profile as a powerful marketing tool 
  • Where to find and connect with your ideal clients in Facebook groups 
  • And how to create a system that grows your list and leads on autopilot 

Whether Facebook has felt overwhelming or like a waste of time—this episode is about to flip that for you. Let’s dive in. 


Connect with Tracy Beavers

As CEO and Founder of Tracy Beavers Coaching, Tracy has a proven track record in business growth. With an award winning career spanning 20 years, Tracy has guided hundreds of entrepreneurs to grow their business visibility through organic marketing strategies. She is a public speaker, and a published author. She has been featured by CBS television, the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair Lingerie, and Kajabi. She is the creator of the top ranked business podcast “Create Online Business Success!”

Join Business Visibility Made Easy: https:www.smarteronlinebusiness.com/bvme 


Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you're loving my eCommerce Made Easy Podcast, I'd be thrilled if you could rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. Your ratings and reviews help me reach more listeners and empower more people like you to thrive in the online business world.

Just click here to head over to Apple Podcasts, scroll down, give us a five-star rating, and share what you enjoyed most about the episode in the "Write a Review" section.

If you haven't hit that follow button yet, now’s the perfect time! I have new episodes coming your way every week that you won't want to miss. Hit the follow button and stay up to date with the eCommerce Made Easy Podcast! Follow Now!



 🎉 Join my free Facebook group for online business owners: Website & Tech Tips for Online Business Owners! Get answers to your tech questions, promote your business, and connect with other entrepreneurs. Trainings, tools, and support to help you grow smarter—without the overwhelm.
👉 smarteronlinebusiness.com/facebook

Support the show

Be sure to subscribe to our podcast where ever you are listening!

You can find our show notes at:
https://www.smarteronlinebusiness.com/

Find more of our resources and newsletter subscription here:
https://linktr.ee/bcsengineering

Carrie Saunders:

What if you could grow your audience an email list every single day without spending a dime on ads or being chained to social media 24-7? Today's guest, Tracy Beavers, is here to show us how. Tracy is a business coach, speaker, and creator of Business Visibility Made Easy Course, and with over 20 years of experience and hundreds of entrepreneurs' help, she's mastered how to grow your visibility through organic marketing, especially using Facebook The Smart Way. In this episode, she is going to break down how to use her personal profile as a powerful marketing tool, where to find and connect your ideal clients on Facebook, and how to create a system that grows your lists and leads on autopilot. And you can apply many of these tactics to other platforms as well, like LinkedIn and Instagram. So whether Facebook has felt overwhelming or like a waste of time, this episode is here to flip that for you. Let's dive in. Struggling to turn website traffic into real sales, you're not alone and you don't have to figure it out all yourself. Welcome to Smarter Online Business, the podcast for course creators, coaches, and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want their websites to convert visitors into buyers without the tech overwhelm. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders, a website strategist and conversion expert with over 20 years of experience. Each episode delivers simple, proven strategies to help you generate more revenue and make your website your smartest sales tool. Welcome back to the show. Today we have a special guest with us. She is a great business friend of mine. She's also the CEO and founder of Tracy Beavers Coaching. And she has a proven track record in business growth. And she has helped me and my business over the past several years. And so I want to welcome Tracy to the show.

Tracy Beavers:

Thanks so much for having me, Carrie.

Carrie Saunders:

It's always fun to be here with you. I always love it when we have our conversations here. So for those who haven't ever listened to any of our previous episodes where we've chatted together, tell us a little bit more about who Tracy Beavers is and how you came to become a coach in this world.

Tracy Beavers:

Yeah, it's a pretty interesting story. Oh, it's a it's probably a story a lot of your listeners can relate to. So I'm Tracy Beavers, and I'm a business and sales coach. I'm located in Arkansas in the United States. Um, and my forte is helping online entrepreneurs, so coaches, course creators, and the service providers that help them. So, like website designers, copywriters, ramp up their visibility in the online space and use that visibility strategically so that it actually grows their email list and brings in more leads. That's where we get the uh stable income every single month that we all really want. Um, because you know, most of us are visible online, but it's lacking strategy. I almost said strategery. It's it's lacking strategery. Um, so it, you know, because if we're just throwing out content to throw out content, all that is is just noise. It's just more stuff. But we've got to have that content work for us, attract our ideal clients, pull them into our email list so that we actually can have conversations with them in the inbox. And then we know who they are, so we can actually DM them over on social media as well.

Carrie Saunders:

And I know you mostly focus on um Facebook uh strategies, but I know that your Facebook strategies also can apply to things like LinkedIn and Instagram. So whenever I just want to let the listeners know, whenever we're talking about Facebook, this can actually apply to the other platforms as well. And I know you use it as a massive marketing tool for business growth. So can you tell me a little bit more about your strategy behind that and how you do that?

Tracy Beavers:

Yes, for sure. So when I was building this business, I started building this business about seven years ago. I had to start alongside my corporate job. I couldn't just quit the job. And um, so I was building this alongside the corporate job. Um, two busy kids at the time, high school and middle school, played all kinds of sports. And I really, but I knew in my heart I wanted to leave corporate and I needed to figure out a way to do that. And so I decided to start start business coaching. Then I found the online space and I was like, okay, how do I get myself visible on social media, online, uh, with strategy in a way that will bring in the leads to me. And I selected Facebook because at that time, and it was kind of by default, I was thinking about this earlier today because I was on another podcast and they kind of asked me the same question. Um, because I'm really big on helping my clients and students pick one platform to start off with, and then you can add on other ones as you have time or as you grow a team. So for me, I didn't know anything about Instagram. I had never used it. I wasn't, I knew it was there, I didn't never pay attention to it. So I didn't have a clue. And LinkedIn back then was a place to go get a job. So I wasn't gonna use that. So that left Facebook, which was also the platform I was on and I knew how to use. So I started with Facebook pretty much by default, but it turned into a massive business builder for me. My multi-six figure business was built and was built entirely on Facebook using organic strategies. So I don't, I I've tried running paid ads twice in my career. That was a major fail and waste of probably $10,000. It was ridiculous. You know that sob story, Carrie. Um, so I did I paid ads were a fail, and I had created the free lead magnets because all the list growth coaches out there said you need to create a free lead magnet and put it out on social. And I had done that, but it wasn't until I tuned into everything you can do on Facebook. One of the reasons why I love the platform so much, not only because it's still the number one platform, but because there are so many nooks and crannies on Facebook that the other platforms just don't have. And if we're gonna ramp up our visibility, we've got to be on the platform that gives us the most opportunities to do that. So that's why I love to teach Facebook and that's why I use it.

Carrie Saunders:

Well, and that's actually a great lead into my next question because I know you've taught me a lot of those nooks and crannies. And some people might be out there like, what am I missing? What are those nooks and crannies? So what are the strategies you like to teach on how to get the most out of your Facebook profile and while you're navigating groups and you know, while you're just interacting and being your normal self on there?

Tracy Beavers:

Yeah. So there's lots of different things you can do on Facebook, and that's what I teach, as you know, because you've been through my eight-week uh group coaching accelerator, Business Visibility Made Easy. Um, I teach 10 strategies. And I think there's like six of those that are that are Facebook centric. So um I'll just run through a couple of them and we can dive in deep to whatever ones you want to. But your Facebook personal profile can actually be a list growth funnel for you when you set it up the right way. And the key is using that cover photo to drive to your email list. Facebook business page, same thing. It doesn't do a lot for us in terms of reach and gaining uh algorithm favor and new new followers and stuff like that, but it still has a place in our um in our strategies for list growth. It can be a list growth funnel for you. Um, if you want to have your own free Facebook group, you can build your own beautiful community where you can welcome in your ideal clients, make it an easy yes for them when you say, Hey, I have this free Facebook community. Um in it, you can come in and ask your questions, get support, get feedback, you know, meet other people for networking and collaborations. No other platform offers that. LinkedIn has groups, but I've been in a couple of those and they don't do the as good of a job as they do on Facebook. And then other people's Facebook groups, um, and this is where the strategies start to kind of tie in together because face there's a lot of Facebook groups out there where our ideal clients are hanging out, but they don't allow promotion of any kind. But the workaround on that and the way you get visibility and list growth from that, even if you can't promote anything, is promoting without promoting. And that looks like being present in a group where your ideal clients or potential collaboration partners are hanging out. You are being of service, you are being your warm, kind human being self, answering questions as you can, cheering each up, cheering other people on, being a support. And they're gonna get curious about you. And they're gonna click on your Facebook personal profile because this happens for me all the time. People are thinking, who is this Tracy Beavers girl who's been in this group and is so kind and so knowledgeable about all the things? They click on my personal profile, they go there and they see who I am, who I serve, and how immediately. And they see something on my cover photo that leads right to my email list funnel and they slide right down to it. So I have hundreds of people that join my free Facebook group every single month because I'm visible in other people's groups, because when they go to my personal profile, most of the time, right now, there's a cover photo for um promoting my podcast. Um, but last week it was a cover photo promoting my free Facebook group. And that's normally what we have. And so they end up joining my free group, and I'm like, hey, how'd you find me? And they're like, I saw you over in the XYZ group, and I I was you seems like you know what you're doing. So I, you know, here I am. They found me using the nooks and crannies of Facebook. So that's just a few examples. Um, you know, and then once we've had people on our list, it's important to have conversations with them and give them value in their inbox, but also come up with fun, interesting ways to get them to reply back so you can deepen that conversation. Um, DM strategies, that's another it's another thing people miss because it's intimidating, it can feel intimidating to have a DM conversation with somebody. But the more conversations we can have, the more likely likely we are to have people want to join our list and convert into a buyer.

Carrie Saunders:

And then so how, like some people might get scared of that DM conversation thing. And I have another thought too, but we'll jump into the DM part first. Um, how do you approach that without seeming like weird and creepy and things like that? Because I feel like that's probably what most people are like. Oh, not one of those people who's like pitches me right away. Um I'm sure most people listening have had that happen to them. Oh no, you don't do that. So, what's your little strategy there?

Tracy Beavers:

I have been cold pitched in the DMs more times than I can count. And it just, I just want to say, oh, bless your heart. Who taught you this strategy? This is terrible. So, no, I do please, for the love, listeners, do not do that. What I'm talking about is having a reason to DM somebody. So, a really easy thing to do is if obviously when somebody joins my free Facebook group, that is my Facebook group. They've wanted to be near me. I'm gonna send them a DM to welcome them into the group, ask them how they are, uncover their needs. Is there something I can give them? I just give them that white glove treatment as, hey, Carrie, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome into the group. You know, you can engage anytime and post and da-da-da-da-da. And then, you know, I'm gonna make sure you got the message and I'm gonna see if there's something I can help you with immediately, like one of my podcast episodes or one of my free trainings that I have in the guide section. But another easy thing to do is if you are in a Facebook group, go in and you could do a post that says, I really want to have some more coffee chats in the next 30 days. Uh, DM me or comment below if you'd like to connect. Well, that allows those other people to raise their hand and self-identify. And so somebody, if somebody comments on that, I'm gonna send them a DM and I'm gonna say, Hey, Carrie, I'm so excited that you commented on my post. I'd love to connect with you too. Or you're gonna DM me, I'm gonna DM you back. The other thing you can do is if we are both in that same group, I could send you a friend request. And when you accept, obviously I'm gonna wait a little bit. I'm not gonna pounce on you immediately, but I'm gonna DM you. I'm gonna go, hey, Carrie, we're both in the XYZ group. Um, you know, I've been in the group for just over a year. How long have you been in? And you're probably gonna go, hey, nice to meet you too. Yeah, well, I haven't been in the group very long and da-da-da-da-da. And then I'm gonna share with you what I do. You know, I help on online entrepreneurs grow their email lists and and bring in more leads with organic strategies. Tell me about what you do, and you're gonna share with you with me what you do. And then we're gonna see what the potential is for the two of us together. Because when we go into a DM conversation, we want to have, we want to think through what is the intent of it. Because, you know, we don't this this isn't gonna come out the way I want it to sound, but I'm not on social media to waste time. I'm there to make uh connections and build relationships for business growth. And what that means for me is when I want to connect with somebody, I'm thinking through, well, maybe they could be a client, but maybe not. And then I'm thinking, well, maybe they might want to collaborate. I don't let me find out what they do and if there's a collaboration there, like what you and I are doing right now on this podcast. Or maybe there's an opportunity for me to be an affiliate for them and them to be an affiliate for me. But by having that DM conversation, you are growing your business through actual connections and relationships, which is what made me successful in sales for over 20 years in corporate.

Carrie Saunders:

Well, and a summary of what I feel like I'm hearing from you too, and how you're given examples on how to do the DM conversations is you're not focused on the outcome of a sale. You're just focused on the connection part and then letting things flow the way they just naturally flow. And I think that can help the listeners, you know, make it seem less scary to do that. It's like, you know, going into some sort of meeting, or maybe you were, you know, went to a networking meeting and you know, in person. And you're not gonna just stand in the corner and look at the wall or something. You're gonna actually go over and introduce yourself to people and ask them what they do, and they will ask you what you do. And, you know, you that's how we kind of need to think about it in the DMs is you know, it's a human being on the other side, it's not a robot. They have feelings, they have things they do, they have passions. Um, and we're just uncovering what those are and see if there's some sort of mutual beneficial way to work together, whether it, whether it is their being a client or whether it's a collaboration or or what or referral or whatnot.

Tracy Beavers:

Exactly. And it what you touched on is the truth. Um, the conversation in the DMs is the same as if you and I were sitting together and just met at a chamber lunch or a rotary event or at a coffee house. It's just that it feels like it should be different because the location is different and because it's online and it's not in person. And so that's where our brains get tripped up and thinking, I gotta say something different, I've got to be witty or clever or, you know, and then you just end up being awkward and weird. So just think about what you would say to that person if you were networking. Because what you're doing in the DMs is you're networking. And you'll find some people are put off by it, no matter what you say. And that's on them. I'm here to grow a business. I'm here to make connections. And I'm gonna do that. Um, and and reach out to people who really want to connect with me. But you'll find people are really receptive. You just, you just have to talk like yourself and don't try to be somebody you're not, and don't think that the conversation has to be different just because it's in the DMs and it's not in person.

Carrie Saunders:

I think that makes a lot of sense. And one of the things I also want to go back that you talked about was um Facebook groups, because uh that's actually the way I um originally started this business in 2002. It wasn't necessarily Facebook groups. I don't think Facebook existed then, but it was an online forum, right? And it was everybody in that online forum had a commonality, they had a specific type of e-commerce shopping cart software, and all I did was go in there and generally help people direct them to the right answers and things like that. So you're just basically translating, you know, an old school way of like forums and things like that. And, you know, we still have Reddit around too. That's not that's that was old school but still new school. Um, but anyway, you're translating it into what we can use our current platform for. What can we, you know, use what we have now, like Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram to connect with these people who have a commonality. And you're likely will find either a good, you know, business collaborator in there, maybe a potentially a client or somebody who can refer to you just by helping out and being yourself. Because when we give, we receive. I feel like we both have experienced that a lot, right?

Tracy Beavers:

Yes, yes, absolutely. Give or scan. I've always had that mindset. Um, and I believe that that is what made me successful in sales for so many years, is that I was not focused on making a sale. I was not focused on the transaction. Because the sale and the transaction, whether that transaction is a true sale where somebody wants to buy what I'm selling, sign up as my client, or that transaction is a collaboration, or that transaction ends up being a referral partner or an affiliate partner, the transaction will happen through the course of the conversation. And so I think people are uncomfortable sometimes with it also because they think they're focusing on the transaction. They're focusing on what can I get out of this? You don't focus on what you can get out of it. You focus on meeting another human being, having a conversation, finding out about them. How can you help them? You give to them and you share with them what you have to give, and then they'll do the same thing for you. And the transaction will take care of itself. It always does. It might not happen that day, but it will happen.

Carrie Saunders:

That's exactly right. And sometimes it might be months or a year later, but many times it still does happen. Correct. You just never know what seeds you planted when you become your genuine, helpful self. Correct. Giving back. So I just love your heart behind all that because it's something that's been ingrained in me for all these years. And you know, sometimes we need to be reminded of it too. You know, there may be listeners thinking, oh, I used to kind of be like that. I need to bring myself back to that more giving. Because sometimes, you know, with things happening in our lives as an economy, we might, you know, start, you know, going away from our natural selves. And I think it's a great reminder.

unknown:

Yeah.

Tracy Beavers:

And then take the pressure off. Yeah, just take the pressure off. Because like you and I were um, we were talking in my in the alumni mastermind this morning about commission breath and desperation and how that energy is palpable, even in the DMs. Um, people can sense an ill intention a mile away. And so just take the pressure off yourself. Just connect for connect's sake and see where it goes because you never know that next connection you make could connect you to the person who blows your business wide open. You just don't know.

Carrie Saunders:

That's exactly right. Now, I know in my mind, at least, and probably our listeners might be wondering too what does your maybe daily or weekly routine look like in getting business visibility and growth via something like a platform like Facebook? What does that look like? How much time does that take you? Um, tell us a little bit about that.

Tracy Beavers:

Yeah. So as you know, I built this business alongside my corporate job. So I did not have a lot of time. I had to be very strategic about where I spent my time. I had to do things as easily but effectively as possible. So I'm all about simplicity, I'm all about ease as long as it is effective. Business growth does not have to be a struggle. Things do not have to have sparklers and fireworks attached to them to be effective. And we do not have to exhaust ourselves being on any platform seven days a week. So, what I um encourage people to do is focus on one platform, get it converting for you before you think about being on another platform. Now, if you've got a team, you know, my assistant puts me over on Instagram. She puts me over on LinkedIn. Do I pay much attention to those platforms? No. Do I have time? Absolutely not. Should I? I wish I had more time. Maybe I should hire somebody to do that for me. But, you know, I focus on Facebook. But what that looked like from a Day in, day out standpoint is I would look at the week and I would think, what do I need for content every week to be consistent enough every week, week in, week out, to ramp up my visibility, get my audience used to seeing me, get the favor of the algorithm, and build my list. And so what I started doing early on, and I teach my clients and students to do is pick one regular piece of weekly content. That is either a live video going live on Facebook or a podcast or a blog. Now, preferably it's a video or a podcast, because as you and I both know, if people can see us and or hear us or both, that's gonna deepen the connection faster than flat words on a page on a blog would. Now, if, but if blog is your jam, you got to start somewhere. So just if if blog is your winner, go ahead and go for it. Um, but you want to create that one piece of regular content. And then what I teach in Business Visibility Made Easy is how to repurpose that one piece into everything else you need to have enough visibility every week without exhaustion. So, as an example, I was going live for just until this last month. Um, I had been going live every Thursday at 11:30 Central. That was my regular piece of weekly content. Because when I started this, podcasting looked like a lot of work. It looked like a lot of tech, it looked like a lot of fancy microphones and lights and speakers and people sitting in their closet. And I was like, I can't do it, I don't have time for that. So I'm just gonna push a button and go live and talk to people. And so I've been going live every Thursday at 11:30. Well, I would write out what I wanted to say in my live, the points that I wanted to make, and make sure that I had a call to action that led to my email list. And then this was before AI came along. I I feel like I grew this business in the stone age because I was doing all this stuff by myself. But anyway, now what I could do is take that notes and the framework of the live, throw that into an AI tool and ask it to help me write two to three social media posts about what I'm the points I'm making about networking or the points I'm making about your Facebook personal profile or the points I'm making about the importance of an email list. So then I've written that one piece. AI has helped me write two to three social media posts. So now I have four pieces of content for the week and I wrote one. And then if you throw in a promotion of a lead magnet once a week, now you have five pieces of content and you've written one. And you can even ask AI to help you write an email to your list about that topic, giving them value, sharing some helpful tips, and a fun way to get them to reply back. So now I've got my regular piece of weekly content that I did. I've got AI's helped me with all the rest, and I haven't more than enough content to be consistent every single week. But the other important thing I want to say is whatever cadence you choose for your content creation, um, if you can't, if you don't feel like it, you can write three social media posts a week, that's okay. But whatever you do choose, you need to stick with it week in, week out. So don't come out of the gate trying to create seven days worth of content. That's too much. Just pick maybe two days a week or three days a week, whatever you can stick with, even on weeks when you don't feel like it, because that consistency is what is going to ramp up your visibility. And then when your copy, your content, and your copy lead to your email list, that's going to get your list to grow.

Carrie Saunders:

And I found in my business, whenever I've been really consistent on um the content, that can really just blow up your it just it's like a big, it's like a good snowball effect. It just starts picking up more snow and more snow and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and you start spreading um your visibility and your wings a bit more when you're consistent. And you're right, it doesn't have to be seven days a week. No, you know, pick what's easy, pick pick what you can do right now and add in more later if you can.

Tracy Beavers:

Right, for sure. Um, because the algorithm, in order to get the favor of Facebook, we have to do what Facebook wants us to do. What does the algorithm want you to do? It wants you to be social. That means posting content, that means interacting on other people's content. It wants you to be in groups, it wants you to go live. It's really easy once you know what is the platform, what are the things the platform gives me that I can do, and then figure out a way to do those things consistently, and you will start to get picked up and your audience will start to see you more often.

Carrie Saunders:

Yes, and I've actually heard too. Um, when you can add this into your plate, make sure you do each of the different types of things. So a text post, an image post, a live, and you know, post a video. You know, use a reveal or a story. So use the different components that a platform has. Obviously, when you're first starting out, don't do them all. We don't want to be overwhelmed. Both you and I want to make sure our clients are overwhelmed, but add in the next easiest one, and that's going to help you get more visible as you can find more time to do these things. Yep, exactly right. And then I know that you have, and this always amazes me, you have list growth and you get leads automatically every day in the background of your business using Facebook. And it's something I'm still trying to refine on my end with your help. So, can you tell us a little bit how you do that? And, you know, maybe remind me what I might be missing on my end too, even though I've been through your course and been coaching with you for a while.

Tracy Beavers:

Yeah. So it's it's really a matter of um putting the strategies in place that I teach and focusing on your activity, not the outcome. So if you think about all roads leading to list building, like I teach, and every action you take in your business every day, asking yourself, how can what I'm about to do grow my list? So if you're gonna be a podcast guest, you need to be prepared when the host says, where can everybody find you to connect with you? That you give them a call to action that leads to your list. If you are going live with someone else, even though it's not a podcast, but you're going live on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, again, you want to be ready with a call to action that's gonna grow your list. That's how it happens automatically in the background because you're not focusing on, I don't set aside time every week to grow my list. I set aside time every week to do the strategies I know are going to grow the list. So the list growth happens as a byproduct and result of the action that I take. The Facebook personal profile, prime example of list growth automatically every day in the background. I don't think about, oh, is my profile going to grow my list today? I set it up for list growth and then I go about my day interacting in groups and being visible in Facebook groups. And again, I'm being visible in Facebook groups, but I'm not thinking, um, I'm not thinking about it uh growing my list because I know it's going to happen because I'm present in the group and because people are clicking on my personal profile. So does that make sense? It does.

Carrie Saunders:

It does. And I I think it's um just being consistent with those actions after you have your Facebook profile dialed in. That's really the key and something I need to do a bit more of because I get tied up with other things that I'm doing in the business. Um, so then how much I'm curious, and I think others might be curious, about how much time do you spend a day then um doing these, you know, DMs and interacting in groups? Um, what do you think that looks like for you?

Tracy Beavers:

Yeah, it's not nearly as much time as people think. Um, people tell me a lot. They say, oh my gosh, you're everywhere. Do you sleep? Are you on social media 24-7? And the answer is no, I'm not. Um, I am active on it because I like, you know, I like to doom scroll just as much as the other person. Um, but when I so I'm very strategic about my time during the week. Um, part of my morning routine is checking the, I have like three to four really good Facebook groups that I'm in that I really like to be present for, but not every day, because that's weird. It's like I don't need to be present in that group every day. That would be, that would feel like too much to the people that are in it, right? I would look like overly assertive and like I'm trying to take over the world or something. So a couple times a week, uh, pick out two to three groups, try them on for size, see who's in them, the conversations they're having. You'll know pretty quickly if it's a group that's worth your time or not, but just make a point to go in for a few minutes, a couple times a week. Get the lay of the land, see who's posting what, see where you can be of service, and then you're done. And a couple days later, go back in, set a timer for 10 minutes. Um, with DM conversations, those don't take very much time at all, primarily because I have my strategy dialed in. Um, for example, the most DMs I send, the thing I do almost every day in the DMs is welcoming new people to my free Facebook group. And that's really easy, though, because I have a message that I send to everybody when they join my group. It's the same message. It's in my notes app, on my phone, and on my laptop, and I go grab it, copy, paste it, throw it into the DMs, and I wait for them to respond. And then when they respond, we I uncover their needs uh as quickly as I can, see if there's a free resource I can give them or a support I can give them, direction, a connection I can make for them. I had a gal reach out to me the other day and I connected her with you. She uh DM'd me and she said, or well, I had DM'd her, I think, because she was joining my group. And uh I said, you know, what can I do to support you right now? She goes, I really need help with SEO. Do you know anybody? I was like, as a matter of fact, I do. Let me connect you with my friend Carrie Saunders. Now, did that lead to income for me? No. Did it lead to a collaboration for me? Nope. But did it lead to a good relationship and connection with the person who's in my free Facebook group? Yes, it did. And she will remember me as a kind person who helped her. And when she goes to think of somebody to help her grow her list, or her a friend of hers says, you know, gosh, I need to join a really great group where I can get support. I'm gonna be remembered. And that's that's that is what the key was for me in sales, is it like we're talking, go back to sales, like we're talking about, having a genuine conversation with another person, asking how you can help them, and then doing what you can to help them in that moment as much as you can. But it really doesn't take um that long. So, like um Mondays and Fridays, I try not to schedule any public appointments. That gives me time to write my podcast and my email and some of my social media posts that um that I don't have my assistant writing. And then um, you know, responding in the DMs a couple times a day. I'm not in the DMs all day long. I'll look in the morning, I'll look in the and maybe at lunch while I'm eating my lunch or in the as I wrap up the day, or maybe not until the next morning. Um, so none of this stuff takes very long, which is really nice. They're all very simple strategies, but when you layer them in the proper order and you get in the habit of being consistent with them, that's when the the compounding effect happens.

Carrie Saunders:

Yeah, it sounds like you really have some great time boundaries around doing these things too. It sounds like to me. You're not just like, you know, letting yourself be in a group for like hours on end, you know, you probably have set a timer or you've already got the mental timer in your head and you were just being very purposeful, seeing how you can help and how you can connect people and then moving on with your day. And I think that's can help people who are listening really see how this can be pretty natural because if we're if we're in this sort of group in in person, you're gonna naturally, you know, try to help the people around you when you hear their conversation. You know, if you're in a networking event and you hear that there somebody needs help with this or that, you know, and you know that you can find somebody to help them or you can help them, you're gonna naturally respond. So I think you're just bringing the natural in-person world, yeah, and making it doable online, yeah. So that it's not that hard, not that scary, not that creepy. We don't want to be that creepy. Right. When you said being in the in the same Facebook group every day, like that to me just like turned on creepy vibes, right? Yeah, it's like it's like a stalker. So I think that's a great point to like, you know, go in your favorite groups every few days, not every day, and see how you can help and just be normal and natural and not be the not be the person staring at you across, you know, room constantly over hours.

Tracy Beavers:

For sure. You don't want to go too little, you don't want to go too much, you kind of want to Goldilocks it. Right. Yeah, no, that's a great phrase Goldilocks it. Just got a Goldilocks it. And it takes a little bit to find your rhythm. It really does. I mean, you know, when I first started this, God, the learning curve was massive. And I was cocky. I mean, I came in to this business building thing with an over 20-year award-winning sales career, just really kind of killing it in corporate, if I if I can brag on myself for a second. I really, I really did. And I came into this thinking, oh, I got this, I can do this. Holy crap! I did not know what I was getting into. And Carrie, you know this because you know me so well. You know, tech's not my love language. And when what people were talking about, you have to make a funnel, you have to make a lead magnet, you have to have a landing page, a sales page, a registration page, a page for this, a page for that, a website, a Kajabi, a go high level, a blah, blah, blah. I was just like, oh my gosh, when do I get to coach people? How do I get to just do that? Why do I have to do all these other things? But once you figure it out, and you feel like you figure out the strategies that are authentic to you, that's the other thing. You know, yeah, I pushed a button and I went live every Thursday for years, but that's not authentic or comfortable for a lot of my students. It, I mean, I can talk to a brick wall, and I've been speaking on stages throughout my life, and my son's laughing at me, he's listening to me talk. But um, you know, so so that's not a big deal for me. But I realize that it's not authentic and doesn't feel good to everybody. Um, neither does having a podcast. So we have to find the strategies that are gonna be authentic to us and then make sure that we use them. That's the thing. It's like I can teach you all the strategies in the world, but at the end of the day, if the students and clients are not gonna do the work, they're not gonna have the results. You know, you don't hire a personal trainer and then think that that's gonna get you in shape. You gotta actually go to the gym and meet the person and do the work.

Carrie Saunders:

That's totally right. And actually, that's so funny because I've actually had a personal trainer for the past eight weeks helping me do strength training. And yeah, I see I've seen results because I went to the gym. Yeah. You know, I went to the gym. I went to the gym the committed times I told her I would do. And I would see him, you know. So I feel like we need to be as business owners that diligent on our own self and our own stuff and not um make sure we're working on our business, not just in the business, right? That's something I try to tell myself regularly because yeah, sometimes hard to get it's easy to get lost in the weeds on working in the business and not on it, which helps you in the future.

Tracy Beavers:

For sure. And I think for we forget that we are CEOs of a business. And there are days when I do not want to do work, but I make myself do it because I want to make money and I want to help people and I want to reach people, and that's not gonna happen if I stay here, you know, in my house and I don't talk to anybody all day. Um, I've got to get on Zoom, I've got to talk to people, I've got to be on podcasts, and I don't always feel like it, but that's where you have to hold your nose and do it anyway.

Carrie Saunders:

It's another famous phrase of Tracy's hold your nose and do it anyway. Hold your nose. I do know when this podcast is releasing, your signature course, Business Visibility Made Easy, will be in process of launching again. Um, so can you tell us first a little bit about what that is? And we'll talk about how people can connect with you as well.

Tracy Beavers:

Yeah, for sure. So Business Visibility Made Easy was something I created back in 2021. And so we are working on now on launch number 12 of the programs. We've had hundreds of students come through, and I and I love it so much. So it's a it's an immersive, I'm I'm starting to call it um I have a better description for it than I think I've ever had. It's an immersive eight-week group coaching accelerator. And the reason why I'm not really calling it just a program anymore is because we all know we've all been in programs, we've all bought courses, we've done all that. This is different. This is an experience where you're gonna get to work alongside me. And the attention you get in this program is unprecedented from, and that comes from my students. They are blown away by the amount of attention that I give them. I am checking all of their homework. I am checking in on them. If I have somebody join my program and they don't show up in the student-only Facebook group that we have, I'm gonna send them a DM and be like, first of all, hey, Carrie, are you okay? You know, the program has started. Are you gonna join us? What can I do to help you? And um, you know, making sure that people are actually getting results. So in the program, I have over 10 strategies that I teach that will give you ramped up visibility to with strategy. The visibility has to have strategy behind it to grow the list and bring in the leads that you want. And that's how we get to the consistent monthly income. The consistent income is the goal of every business owner. They don't want to, they want to know have stable income to know how much is coming in every month. Um, but to get that, we've got to have the list growth and the leads. To get that, you got to reverse engineer back to ramping up your visibility. And that starts with things like we've talked about today. And I teach mostly Facebook because that's where your ideal clients are for most everybody. Um, but we do things like making sure your personal profile is a list growth funnel, your business page is a list growth funnel, your social media content. I'm gonna teach you how to create enough to ramp up the visibility without overwhelming yourself, something you can easily do every week. Um, I'm gonna teach you how to have DM conversations so you always know what to say and you feel good about it. I'm gonna teach you how to go live if you want to go live. You know, there's a really cool framework I give you that will help you um stay on track with what you want to say, make sure you make all the points you want to say, and make sure that you give a call to action that leads to your list. We're gonna talk about collaborations, podcast guesting, networking, uh, referral partners. Just it's really, it's really a comprehensive program, but I do not teach paid ads. And I am not the list growth coach that's gonna tell you to create yet another free lead magnet because you probably already have done that. I'm gonna teach you everything else you can learn.

Carrie Saunders:

And I will say that, you know, as a student of yours, I think it was like two years ago, um, I your course actually blew me away. It was the best course I had ever taken, and it was the high touch point behind it. And it's how I modeled my course after because I just love the experience in there. So for those listening, Tracy does a really great job of that high touch and giving you that full experience. And if you're interested in more information on it, it'll there will be a link in our show notes. But before we wrap up, Tracy, I know some people might want to be connecting with you and getting in your free Facebook group. Um, and we will definitely have links to all those things in our show notes. Um, but tell us um obviously Facebook's the best place to connect with you. But is there any anything else you want to add on how to connect with Tracy Beavers and get to know you better?

Tracy Beavers:

Yeah, I have a um a podcast that I'm loving. It's called Create Online Business Success. I'd love it if they gave it a listen, not a follow. And then come join my free Facebook group. It's called Be a Confident Entrepreneur, get visible, grow your email list and your income. Carrie's in the group along with over 4,000 other online entrepreneurs. We have experts on everything. And so that's what I love about the group so much is that like somebody will post and say, I'm stuck in go high level, or they'll say, I'm thinking of leaving Kajabi to go to Go High Level. Well, who do you think I'm gonna tag? I'm gonna tag Carrie Sanders and Saunders and say, hey, you need to have a conversation with her. Or if somebody says I'm stuck in Kajabi and I'm about to pull my hair out, I'm gonna be tagging Shannon Gaither and some of the other Kajabi experts we have in the group. And so that's what happens. So when people join my group, I get to know them on a deep level. And if somebody needs that person's expertise, that's where I'm gonna be connecting people.

Carrie Saunders:

I just love that. I love how that you are always just so giving with everything. You love to connect people. You just, I don't know, you just have created a great happy family, I feel like, in your free Facebook group. I just love it. So thank you so much, Tracy, for being on our podcast again. As always, I always learn or relearn something great from you. And I hope all of our listeners can walk away with a few actionable steps today that that can help their business grow better. Thanks, Carrie. Isn't Tracy just a breath of fresh air? I have loved working with her the past several years. We've been collaborating and networking together and helping each other out. And I love how she takes something that often feels confusing, like organic marketing, and breaks it down to clear, simple strategies that actually work and that isn't overwhelming. If you're ready to grow your visibility the easy way, check out her course, Business Visibility Made Easy. I'm dropping the link in the show notes for you. And remember, your next client could be one simple post away. If your strategy is working for you in the background, thanks for listening to the Smarter Online Business Podcast, and we will see you next week.